The Wahpeton times., 1887-12-15

To sing with all their might and main
J TIE filis to the girls reiain;
''Oh. for d mansion In the skies,
A mana mansion in the skies.
The Terror Of The Sea.
The great noise and excitement
kicked up in America whenever an oc.
topus is captured, ,seems queer enough
to q sailor who has voyaged to trop.
ical countries. From the Cape Verde
islands clear around the coast of Al
RIGA to the Gulf of Alden, the devil fish
can be found in all the bights and
bays. You can find him in the Indian
ocean, New Zealand sea, Coral sea-
among all the islands lying about New
Guinea. He abounds in the Nfediter.
ranean sea and the Pacific ocean, and
have seen him in all the waters from
Cuba down to Cape Horn, and up the
other side of Brazil to the isthmus OF
Panama. He is by no means a rare
sight to sailors, and the fact that he
is not dreaded, like the shark. is be.
cause instances ate rare where he at j.
tacks man. lido not believe the hide.
ous monster ever attacks human be-
ings from hunger. Tho sen is full
of their sort Of food, and nature
never expected them to prey on the
flesh and bones of a tough old
salt. l have read and heard it often
asserted that the octopus sucks the
blood and devours the flesh of the
man unfortunate enough to be en-
trapped in those awful arms. but
can prove to the contrary. My ex-
perience with the terrible creatures
has also gone to prove that they sell
dom or never attack person unless
their anger is excited.
In 1866 was one of the crew of the
American bark Henry Castle, which
made voyage to the Java sea and
called at several of the large islands.
One day, while the ship was lying on
the outer harbor OF Samarang, Isl.
and of Java, two of us pulled the
captain ashore in the gig. We landed
him on rocky point, from whence
he took short cut across to the
town, and We were ordered to wait there
until his return. My shipmate,
whose. name was Thurber, stretched
out tor nap as soon as the captain
had gone, while got out on the point
to have q look around. The water was
pretty deep alongside the boat, and
by and By, full o: a sailors deviltry.
picked up large rock and heaved it
into the water with a Great splash.
calculated on seeing Thurber start up
in alarm. but he only laughed at my
effort. Then / set out to wet him
with q splash. and flung five or six
other rocks as large as could handle.
Twas hunting for yet another, and
had my back to the boat and the wa
ter. when something passed my head.
I made a leap aside and wheeled
around. In the two seconds thus oc-
cupied ] decided that Thurber had
thrown some missile at me, and
laughed as / turned about.
The laugh, however, died away in g.
shout of terror. An octopus with a
body as large as bcer key had risen
TO tho surface and partly pulled itself
on the rocks. and ITS half dozen terri
bic arms were flying about like SO
many whip lashes. It had
Hung one of them at mo
and missed its aim. Although -. l
was now thirty feet away, it contin.
ued to fling, three or four ,feelers in nv
direction. hut none of them could
reach ME within fifteen feet. The two
longest arms were from fifteen to eight
cen feet long, and the shorter ones
from eight to ten.
9H could have restrained myself
Tor a few minutes the monster would
no doubt have sunk beneath the wa.
tefs again, but the awful stare OF it's
eyes, the sight of the terrible beak,
the,squirming Of those horrible feelers
as they tried in vain to touch me,
made me cry out loudly. might
have known that could make no
headway against the monster with the
means at hand, but, acting on the i'm
pulse OF the moment, ] picked up q
good-sized rock and flung it with Ger
tain aim at the pulpish body. 1t WAS at
this moment that Thurber rose up i'll
the boat to see what was going
on. The creature didn't see him at
first. being entirely occupied in
trying to get me into its clutches. I
believe Thurber could have pushed
the boat of and floated away in safe
ty, but he also acted on the frat inn
pulse. Lifting up one of the heavy
oars he dealt the octopus heavy
blow. no doubt inflicting severein injury.
He was raising the oar for q second
blow, when / saw three or four feelers
whip through the air at once and
tasten to him, while the creature emit
ted a kissing sound like the blowing of
OF steam. The man uttered a scream
OF fright and terror as the feeler caught
him, and sank down in the boat and
clung to a thwart with the clutch OF
I despair. l@
Mind you, everything had taken
place IN q moment, and / wasn't
to be blamed for not knowing exactly
what to do. However, perhaps
accomplished ali that could have
been done under the circumstance. I
hurled rock after rock at the creature,
! striking it fairly several times, but it
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